We propose to continue the overall research direction of the Charity Hospital-Tulane-Louisiana State University GCRC, along lines established during the past project period. We plan for the GCRC to continue to serve as a facility for patient-based applied and basic research. The specific aims of the GCRC will continue to be: (1) to provide a well-staffed and expanded facility that will allow inhospital and outpatient care for individuals who are subjects of research projects; (2) to continue to support a small Core Laboratory which will provide assays for many of the researchers who use the facilities as a measure to increase productivity and reduce cost; (3) to improve the quality of patient care in the overall Charity Hospital-Tulane-LSU medical complex by continuing to apply advances made in these clinical research endeavors to disease diagnosis and therapy; (4) to continue to provide and to expand our efforts with regard to training in methodology and design of the clinical research projects as a form of teaching for postgraduate research residents, interns, medical students, fellows, nurses, and other paramedical personnel. Clinical research programs involving all major departments in both medical schools plus several major centers or institutes concerned with specific diseases are currently in place in the GCRC. Interdisciplinary efforts have been stressed and have been particularly successful during the initial years of operation. We plan to continue to stress a strong inter-disciplinary effort by both medical schools and several departments within each school. The GCRC will remain predominantly an adult unit, but it will continue to have within its overall makeup an expanding number of pediatric patients and study subjects who have contagious diseases within its overall makeup.